Monday, October 02, 2006

Fear Not, and Keep Fighting

Opinion Research has released another poll. It also shows the Republicans way behind. It also is bogus.

Some of you will say to me, "C'mon Mark, all these polls are saying the Republicans are way behind. All these polls can't be wrong."

Yes they can be. That is what I am trying to tell you. If you conduct two polls with flawed methodologies, they are going to be wrong. If you conduct ten with flawed methodologies they will still be wrong.

Don't lose your nerve, if you are an Asa/Holt supporter. Don't let them pysche you. Ten bogus polls are just as bogus as two. Ten polls based on the assumption that the 4th district will have just as many voters as the third are wrong ten times in a row. They are wrong because they are based on assumptions that are wrong.

Zogby won't reveal his methodology in detail, but his poll shows the Governor's race to be a three point race for the last two polls. I wish they had polled the Lt. Govs race because that one would show Holt leading.

Look, in 04 Holt was at 32% in the polls against Senator Blanche Lincoln days before the election when he got 44%. She spent 6.7 million dollars in that race. You think Holt is really at 41% against some guy from California named Halter? You really think Asa is losing the third CD this month (as the Roby Brock poll said) when the same poll last month showed him 35 points ahead in the 3rd? The polls are bogus. Fear not.

Remember that not only has the Zogby poll consistently showed it to be close, Asa's own poll showed it close, and we know that Bill Halter has spent $34,000 on polling and he is NOT releasing the results and he is campaigning like he is 10 points behind (with outrageous negative attacks). Halter has no name ID in half the state, and he is STILL mentioning Holt's name more than his own in press releases. That is a bone-head strategy unless you think your opponent is on track for over 50% of the vote and you feel that you have to take votes from him to win. Halter knows he is behind, you should know it too.

Asa may be behind, but not much. The more reputable polls still show the race within the margin of error and have Beebe under 50%. He may not get over it- there is a fair chance that the winner on election day will have less than 50% because there are four candidates on the ballot.

Asa will lose and Holt will lose. But do trying to buck up the troops as it is so fun to watch. Reminds me of that scene in Animal House where Chip Diller yells at the oncoming mob, "remain calm! remain calm!"

In real life, the third CD, where Republicans are strongest, has close to a third of the state wide vote. The first and fourth districts are barely over 20% each. That is not wishful thinking, that is history. It is fact. Your rebuttal seems to be mock and ridicule, you lose the debate.

I'm not a pollster or a statistician, but here's what I did. I took Oakleaf's poll numbers and re-weighted them, assuming that 32 percent of the votes will come from the 3rd district, 25 percent from 2nd district, 22 percent from 4th district, and 21 percent from 1st district. Assuming that Oakleaf was wrong to weight congressional districts evenly, and assuming that he was right on everything else, I'm showing Beebe with a lead of 12.3%.

Here's my question -- does anyone have any specific complaints about Oakleaf's methodology, other than his weighing of congressional districts? Please, don't give me "Oakleaf is an idiot" responses -- I want intelligent analyses of these polls. Mark Moore's comments are fair -- Mark if you have other specific complaints please advise.

I agree, Jim Holt will win this race. It is the perfect situation for him. An out of state, liberal opponent who is just a plain oddball when you meet him. Holt is actually the better choice in this race (never thought I'd say that). Holt will one day be governor or a US Senator from the great state of Arkansas.

I do have other complaints if he used the same methodology he used last time (details have not been forthcoming about Oakleafs methods this time).

Here is an excerpt from my article last time on the Oakleaf poll.....

" It is the 65+ crowd that gives the democrats the biggest margin. Mortiz fails to reveal that the Oakleaf poll had a whopping 36% from 65+ voters! Instead, he clouds it by grouping it with younger voters, 55 and up or even 45 and up. But the plain fact is that of actual voters on election day in 04, only 26% were 60 or older while in the Oakleaf poll 36% were 65 and older.

So then how many voters on election day in 04 were 65 or older? Most people don't last much past 75, and I would guess most who do are interested in eternity more than voting. A reasonable guess is that a quarter to a third of all voters over 60 are between 60 and 65. My wife the election worker confirms this estimate. So say that means that you can shave about a third off of the numbers in the 04 post election poll to get an estimate of the percentage over 65. In other words, if 26% were over 60 then 26% X 0.66 were over 65.

That is just a hair over 17% in actual voters being over 65 vs. 36% of voters over 65 in the Oakleaf poll. They need to give it up!

Your analysis is absolutely correct. The media keep using the cheapest pollsters they can find because they're job isn't to get it right, just to have something to write about. That's why they are willing to spend pennies on bogus pollsters like Oakleaf or automated calling pollsters -- it's cheap. Wrong, but cheap. Stephens Media is the most offensive in this whole affair. Oakleaf is known as a Democrat, and to poll in a way that skews for Democrats. Stephens Media is an indepedent newspaper and should value its reputation more. Oakleaf has never gotten it right, and yet they KEEP paying him money to produce bogus polls.

I have other complaints about Oakleaf's poll other than the obvious one that he overweights parts of the state where there isn't any population. Mike Beebe and Bill Halter may very well get 100 percent of the vote in Dallas County, for example. But 100 percent of five voters doesn't amount to much -- except in Roby Brock's poll and Ernie Oakleaf's poll and all the other polls that used this flawed approach.

Besides that Oakleaf over samples seniors. He polls way too many Democrats -- of course the Democrats are going to come out ahead if you poll mostly Democrats.

I could go on and on, but why bother. You guys keep telling yourself that Oakleaf is right, despite the fact that he's been wrong just about every election so far. Now, there's a track record worth bragging about.